mumbles3k

Tobar said:

Welcome to the forum! =)

So does that mean Nemesis is among the best of the franchise? Trek 09 was basically just a rehash of the last Trek film that had come out with a layer of stomping on continuity thrown on top with a sprinkling of style. Though it was well paced.

 Thanks! I don't think that Nemesis is among the franchise's best, but I also don't see the similarities it has to ST09. Aside from a few very surface-level things, they're completely different movies.

DrCrowTStarwars said:

Tobar said:

doubleofive said:

My friends have a great interview up with the writers of Star Tr3k. Check it out!

http://trek-fm.squarespace.com/commentary-trek-stars/87

 I think I pulled a muscle from cringing when Mike said Trek 09 was the best Star Trek movie of all time.

 So had this guy seen ever seen any Star trek before?  Star Trek 09 was a good big dumb summer action movie but Star Trek is about being more then big dumb summer action and given the choice between the last two movies and another season of Enterprise run by Manny Coto I'd choose another season of Enterprise and I hated Enterprise when it came on but it really turned around and in that last year felt more like Star trek then the last two movies.  Heck I like season four Archer of all people more then the spoiled brat they are trying pass off as  Kirk these days.

Even as a Star Trek action movie both of those films just lift directly from Wrath of Khan which was a much better film,has this guy even seen Wrath of Khan?

I am going into a full blown fan boy freak out here.

 Yeah, I'd seen all 729 episodes of Trek before 09 came out. I would agree that ST09 is good and big, but I don't think it's dumb. I actually think that it's very intelligently made. I think that perhaps a lot of people are blinded by the spectacle and fail to see that Abrams and company are telling a story on par with the best in the franchise, just in a different way. Just my opinon, though.

Tobar said:

doubleofive said:

My friends have a great interview up with the writers of Star Tr3k. Check it out!

http://trek-fm.squarespace.com/commentary-trek-stars/87

 I think I pulled a muscle from cringing when Mike said Trek 09 was the best Star Trek movie of all time.

 Hello,

This is Mike from Commentary: Trek Stars. doubleofive just alerted me to this thread. Just wanted to say thanks for listening!

Glad to hear about CATCHING FIRE.

As far as OAR preservation is concerned, I guess it should be noted that all of the Imax footage from THE DARK KNIGHT and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is presented in the original 1.44 ratio as a supplement on the box set. In the movies themselves, the Imax footage is cropped to 1.78.

Also, in the weird Imax ratio department, the Imax footage in STAR TREK IN2 DARKNESS was cropped to 1.66 theatrically, despite being shot in 1.44.

CatBus said:

You_Too said:

Life of Pi had different aspect ratios, and on top of that it had some stuff move out over the black borders sometimes!

I'm kinda torn on if this qualifies, personally. If there's content outside the frame, then it's not really fair to call that the frame, is it? Yeah, it's a bit of a pedantic distinction, but still...

Not that it wasn't a neat effect (and a reminder that 2D depth effect tricks can still be more effective than stereoscopic ones). Ang Lee has tried before to bring comic book inspired visual tricks to the big screen, and this effect worked out much better than most of the things he did for Hulk IMO.

 Life of Pi was an extreme example, but a lot of 3D movies do this. They're called "floating frames." Usually, there is a very small black border around the image which allows for the 3D effect to be seen at the edges of the screen. But unlike Life of Pi, it's usually so subtle that you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking for it.

One movie that probably would qualify, one way or another, is G-Force. It was shot in 2.39, and presented that way in 2D. But for 3D, the file was technically 1.85, with a 2.39 image letterboxed inside of it. This allowed for the 3D effects to leave the frame, theoretically producing a more immersive image. Of course, if it was being shown in an auditorium with common-height masking, the image was only a fraction of the size it could be. But what can you do?

YOU'VE half-joked. I'm 100% serious.

Hello,

First time poster. Doubleofive alerted me to this thread, and I thought I'd add some thoughts. For whatever reason, I'm obsessed with aspect ratios. I also worked as a projectionist for years, and I picked up a lot of useless trivia in that time. Hope I can help.

First off, in regards to the list at hand, here's what I've come up with:

Grand Budapest Hotel: Uses 1.33, 1.85 and 2.39 to differentiate time periods

Dr. Strangelove: This one is weird. It was originally 1.66 theatrically, but for home video it had "variable aspect ratios" at Stanley Kubrick's request. Much has been written about this, but I handled a print myself, and it's quite clear that the variable AR version is just open matte to 1.33, and some of the footage was hard matted in camera. You also see boom mic's and fuzzy-edged gates, etc. It's clear to me that the film was originally intended to be shown in 1.66 throughout. Then again, Kubrick says it wasn't. So take that as you will. The Blu-ray has opted to go back to the constant ratio though.

In regards to the second list, I think that's a good idea, but I also think that some restraint might be good. Including all movies that have been shown open matte is basically the HD equivalent of including movies that have been panned and scanned. It's standard operating procedure to make a 1.78 master of 2.39 movies that were shot in Super 35 or HD. It would be a really long and kind of pointless list, because most times, they're only shown on TV, and not even the filmmakers themselves have watched them.

On the other hand, I do think that it would be very beneficial to have a list of movies with aspect ratios which were changed either theatrically or on home video for creative reasons. And there are a lot of those.

In reply to some stuff mentioned in the thread:

I'm pretty sure the Imax ratio for Apollo 13 was 1.44 theatrically. They did this for Attack of the Clones as well, but I think that was 1.78. I heard they actually recomposited shots for that one.

Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol is 1.78 on Netflix. So you can see the Imax footage opened up a bit, although the 35mm footage is cropped.

Avatar was really weird. Cameron composed for 2.39, then realized that he preferred the added height for 3D. So the Imax version was windowboxed to 1.78. the 2D version was 2.39. But for standard theaters showing the movie in 3D, 2 versions were sent out. One was 2.39 and one was 1.85. Theaters were told to use whichever version would produce the largest image, depending on the screen masking. Then for home video, he decided that the movie looked best at 1.78 regardless of 2D or 3D.

Titanic went through a similar (if simplified) process for its 3D release. Shot in Super 35, it was originally composed for 2.39. This is how it was presented in regular 3D theaters. But in Imax, it was opened up to 1.78. On the Blu, the 2D version is 2.39, and the 3D version is 1.78.

bigrob, is the changing AR on the Catching Fire Blu confirmed? I heard that the European release would have both, but the American release was going to be 2.39 throughout.

There are a number of other movies like Prometheus that were 2.39 in regular theaters and 1.90 in Imax. The ones I know of are:

Skyfall

Oblivion

I, Frankenstein

Hope this helps.